Will Third Party Certifications Replace Regulations And Oversight For Food?

As the new administration moves broadly to remove or soften consumer protections in a variety of critical areas it’s impossible not to think, first, about food and water. There are many products on the market designed to clean up our water as or after it comes out of the tap – and a significant number of public fights about getting it clean from municipal sources in the first place– but what about food? How in the world do we know where it’s from, how it was raised or made and what’s actually in it?

The Certified Organic label seems to be everywhere these days. it’s an industry that analysts say hit $58 billion last year. And it was certainly all over nearly everything recently at a trade show held twice a year for the Specialty Foods Industry. Specialty used to mean rare or creatively different or from far away, handmade or nearly anything relating to cheese or chocolate. It still does but now it also often means organic, fair trade, gluten free, humanely raised and sustainably produced. That last moniker has been hard to track but now there’s help, backed by a lot of verifiable research, and it’s an enormous move forward in a very complicated world.

Organic produce is seen for sale, November 28, 2016 at a Ralph's Supermarket in Irvine, California. ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

Sustainable is a funny word. As a consultant I always want it to mean -at the very least- a viable, profitable entity. In our culture it has also come to mean that something can be done for the long term without depleting a species or ruining the world we live in.

Being able to fully understand and interpret such efforts has been mysterious at times. The information is often scientific and requires an expertise most don’t possess. We tend to feel satisfied with an effort in what we perceive as a good direction. That may not be enough.

No surprise then that there’s an app coming to the rescue. But behind it, like a lot of the more useful new shortcuts, is a lot of work and a lot of information.

Bond Red hens stand in a field at the Mulloon Creek Natural Farm in Bungendore, Australia, on Thursday, July 30, 2015. Australia's gross domestic product grew 2.3 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier. Photographer: Brendon Thorne/Bloomberg

HowGood Certified Brands can be found at HowGood.com. They don’t promise the answer to every question but they do help identify “Better sourcing and processing standards | More wholesome ingredients | Humane treatment of animals | Fair policies for workers” which is a huge chunk of what a lot of shoppers want to know. And they provide the backup for their conclusions.

The look of the logo might feel familiar. After some initial meetings with Whole Foods brass about introducing the ratings to their stores, discussions stopped and Whole Foods introduced a remarkably similar program with a remarkably similarly look. Since shoppers (and front line employees) were less than enthusiastic about this attempt at self-rating, it’s being quietly dropped. In fact, it garnered a fair amount of ridicule, coming from a company at least twice fined for major overcharging. Trust is a funny thing and the halo of goodness Whole Foods once wore proudly has been knocked off one too many times. (And now they’ve outsourced their fresh prepared foods, showing once again that they really don’t have a passion for, well, food.

HowGood has information on more than 25,000 farms and is currently in about 280 stores in 26 states. Their goal for the coming year is 2000 stores in the US and a total of 4000 including Europe. It’s a major push and, while they charge the stores for being able to display the ratings, it’s a modest marketing cost that could soon upend some more traditional ways stores spend to promote and sell, especially if it continues to be a hit with shoppers. Personalization – editing for your preferred interests, like water or pesticide issues- is also in the works.

I was glad to learn that they focus a lot of their efforts on context or area specific study. They spend 45% of that research time on the 25% share of total information they gather, collate and present. It seems that some of those government grants and stimulus investments made on our way out of the Recession are starting to produce big rewards for smart companies and marketers, and for a general public looking for some reliable, real facts, especially when it comes to what they’re putting in their mouths and the mouths of those they love.

I’ve been a food business consultant for 30 years, working with developers, restaurateurs, whole towns or resort properties. I helped found the nation’s first Food Studies program, at NYU, write and talk about food on radio and tv and help build successful enterprises large...